In recent years, medical researchers have made substantial break-throughs in combating and treating a number of serious disorders. Many of these advances have come in the field of chemotherapy whereby chemicals are administered to a patient to treat or diagnose a disease without having an unduly adverse effect on the patient. This technique is used in the field of cancer therapy whereby different chemicals are introduced into the body of the patient in order to inhibit the spread of the disease or to detect a diseased area. Many of these chemical agents contain highly radioactive isotopes or serums and while the dosages applied are themselves not lethal, constant and repeated contacts with the serums over an extended period of time can create very harmful effects on the medical technicians and operators who administer them.
While several radiation safety shields are in use at the present time, none of these shields adequately protects the technician and at the same time allows him to precisely assay the amount of radioactive material that is injected into the patient. A lead shield which only affords limited protection to the operator is presently in routine use. After a syringe is placed in the shield of this device and the serum withdrawn, the syringe must be removed to assay the serum. This exposes the clinical personnel to unnecessary and harmful radiation. Also, due to its bulk, the device makes an injection quite difficult to administer.
A patented device relates to a shield for a hypodermic syringe adapted to surround the barrel of the syringe to protect the user against radiation emanating from radioactive fluids contained therein. This shield is lead lined, and is provided with a bayonet-fitting element engaging the manually held end of the syringe. A coil spring cooperates with the bayonet-fitting element to prevent wobbling between the barrel of the syringe and the barrel of the shield. The barrel of the shield is so configured that a small end of the barrel of the syringe is uncovered to permit visual inspection of flow, to and from the syringe. However, as can easily be seen, this shield can neither be retracted to allow an assay of the serum in a satisfactory manner, nor does the device contain a means to ensure that a proper dosage is introduced into the syringe.